I successfully managed to compile Truecrypt 5.0 on my Ubuntu 7.10 64 bit.
There are good reason to upgrade from 4.3a (5.0 is kernel version independent) and to avoid.


The patch, comes from the work of Heinzelotto addresses some 32bit->64bit issue in the code.

The binary produced works pretty well, but I’m not going to distribute it at the moment. Moreover, for a sensitive software like Truecrypt, it’s wise to use only the Developer Binaries or the Ubuntu/Debian issues. Rogues third party packages (including my one), could be tampered with.

While I address the issue to find a way to distribuite a building system without violating the Truecrypt licence, maybe you’ll need the patch.

Heinzelotto 64 bit patch for Truecrypt 5.0

Pre-requisites: as well as the various basic build-essential prerequisites (will not cover them here), to compile the 5.0 you’ll need to install also libfuse-dev and have wxWigdets sources handy.
Briefly, your steps should be:
(Legalese disclaimer, follow the instructions on your risk)

$ sudo apt-get install libfuse-dev
$ cd /usr/src/
$ sudo tar xvzf wxWidgets-2.8.7.tar.gz
Let’s suppose the truecrypt sources and the patch you downloaded are in your home directory
$ cd
$ gunzip truecrypt_64bit.txt.gz
$ tar xvzf TrueCrypt 5.0 Source.tar.gz
You got the tar.gz version, didn’t you?
$ cd truecrypt-5.0-source/
$ patch -p1 <../truecrypt_64bit.txt
There you go, follow the Truecrypt provided Readme.txt
$ make WX_ROOT=/usr/src/wxWidgets-2.8.7 wxbuild
(and not WXROOT like I stated, thanks anonymous and spoons for pointing out the mistake )
$ make
From now you’re on your own with the Readme instruction, but keep in mind that Debian and Ubuntu discourage to trash with manually compiled binaries (e.g binaries you compiled outside the ubuntu/debian building system, and install bypassing dpkg, apt-get, synaptic and all the rest of the funny circus) the /usr/bin and the other system directories.
If you decide to install manually/using a foreign script, consider placing stuff in /usr/local/* .
I must say that using a different directory (such as you home) from /usr/src to place the wxWigdet stuff could probably save you from sudoing and/or becoming root. But I did not try (I will).

[Update]Truecrypt 5.0a is out, but the patch provided by Heinzelotto works as well as with the bare 5.0.
He managed to provided a new .deb for the new version 5.0a; as well as another deb that should be less sensitive to version issues older debian (and ubuntu?) versions.